Monday, 1 December 2008

Federal bench short on diversity

ALABAMA:

Federal bench short on diversity

Other actions that presidents take may get more attention in the shortterm, but few have more long-term implications than appointments to thefederal courts. These are lifetime appointments, and as such can continueto exercise influence decades after a president has left office.

Although appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court prompt lots of discussion,and rightly so, presidents also leave a huge impression on the judiciarywith their appointments to the federal district and circuit courts. Apresident will make scores of these appointments. President Bush, forexample, has named 322 district and circuit judges. President Clintonnamed 371.

In Alabama, there is a lamentable lack of racial diversity in theappointments made to the federal district bench in the pastquarter-century. We hope to see that change under the Obamaadministration, which will have one immediate vacancy to fill upon takingoffice in January.

Judge U.W. Clemon, who serves in the Northern District, is leaving thebench. Clemon and Judge Myron Thompson of the Middle District were the 1st2 black federal judges in the state. Both were appointed by PresidentCarter in 1980.

That was 28 years and four presidents ago. No black Alabamian has beennamed to the federal bench here since. President Clinton did nominate awell regarded Birmingham attorney, Ken Simon, in the last months of hisadministration in 2000, but that nomination was opposed by Republican Sen.Richard Shelby, who contended that the incoming president should make theappointment.

There is some gender diversity on the federal bench here, although none inthe Middle District of the state. Here, the district judges-- Thompson,Mark Fuller, Keith Watkins and Senior Judges Truman Hobbs, HaroldAlbritton and Ira DeMent -- are all male.

In the Northern District, four of the 12 judges are female. The 4 judgeson senior status are all male. Senior judges continue to hear cases on alimited basis.

In the Southern District, 2 of the 4 judges are female. The one seniorjudge is male.

Race is in itself neither a qualification nor a disqualification for afederal judgeship. However, federal courts that do not to at least somereasonable degree reflect the populations whose cases they hear can losethe confidence of the people. Minorities who aspire to the federaljudiciary have to wonder about how realistic their goals are.

"I don't believe in setting quotas for judgeships, but at the same timethere has not been a black person appointed to the bench since 1980," U.S.Rep. Artur Davis said in an interview with the Birmingham News. "I thinkit's impossible to suggest that there hasn't been a talented, qualifiedblack lawyer in that time."

Of course it is. The record is as troubling as it is clear -- 2appointments made 28 years ago, 1 late-term nomination 8 years ago thatnever had a chance, and not even so much as a nomination of a black woman,ever.